Chapter XV
UNLIMITED POWER OF THE MAJORITY IN THE UNITED STATES, AND ITS
CONSEQUENCES

NATURAL STRENGTH of the majority in democracies--Most of the American
constitutions have increased this strength by artificial means--How this has been done--Pledged
delegates-Moral power of the majority--Opinion as to its infallibility-Respect for its
rights, how augmented in the United States.

THE very essence of democratic government consists in the absolute sovereignty of the
majority; for there is nothing in democratic states that is capable of resisting it. Most of the
American constitutions have sought to increase this natural strength of the majority by artificial
means.1

Of all political institutions, the legislature is the one that is most easily swayed by the will of
the majority. The Americans determined that the members of the legislature should be elected by
the people directly, and for a very brief term, in order to subject them, not only to the general
convictions, but even to the daily passions, of their constituents. The members of
both houses are taken from the same classes in society and nominated in the same manner; so
that the movements of the legislative bodies are almost as rapid, and quite as
irresistible, as those of a single assembly.

It is to a legislature thus constituted that almost all the authority of the government has been
entrusted.

At the same time that the law increased the strength of those authorities which of themselves
were strong, it enfeebled more and more those which were naturally weak. It deprived the
representatives of the executive power of all stability and independence; and by subjecting them
completely to the caprices of the legislature, it robbed them of the slender influence that the
nature of a democratic government might have allowed them to exercise. In several states the
judicial power was also submitted to the election of the majority and in all of them its existence
was made to depend on the pleasure of the legislative authority, since the representatives were
empowered annually to regulate the stipend of the judges.

Custom has done even more than law. A proceeding is becoming
more and more general in the United States which will, in the
end, do away with the guarantees of representative government: it
frequently happens that the voters, in electing a delegate, point
out a certain line of conduct to him and impose upon him certain
positive obligations that he is pledged to fulfill. With the
exception of the tumult, this comes to the same thing as if the
majority itself held its deliberations in the market-place.

Several particular circumstances combine to render the power
of the majority in America not only preponderant, but
irresistible. The moral authority of the majority is partly based
upon the notion that there is more intelligence and wisdom in a
number of men united than in a single individual, and that the
number of the legislators is more important than their quality.
The theory of equality is thus applied to the intellects of men;
and human pride is thus assailed in its last retreat by a
doctrine which the minority hesitate to admit, and to which they
will but slowly assent. Like all other powers, and perhaps more
than any other, the authority of the many requires the sanction
of time in order to appear legitimate. At first it enforces
obedience by constraint; and its laws are not respected until
they have been long maintained.

The right of governing society, which the majority supposes
itself to derive from its superior intelligence, was introduced
into the United States by the first settlers; and this idea,
which of itself would be sufficient to create a free nation, has
now been amalgamated with the customs of the people and the minor
incidents of social life.

The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that
the king could do no wrong; and if he did do wrong, the blame was
imputed to his advisers. This notion made obedience very easy; it
enabled the subject to complain of the law without ceasing to
love and honor the lawgiver. The Americans entertain the same
opinion with respect to the majority.

The moral power of the majority is founded upon yet another
principle, which is that the interests of the many are to be pre-
ferred to those of the few. It will readily be perceived that the
respect here professed for the rights of the greater number must
naturally increase or diminish according to the state of parties
When a nation is divided into several great irreconcilable
interests, the privilege of the majority is often overlooked,
because it is intolerable to comply with its demands.

If there existed in America a class of citizens whom the
legislating majority sought to deprive of exclusive privileges
which they had possessed for ages and to bring down from an
elevated station to the level of the multitude, it is probable
that the minority would be less ready to submit to its laws. But
as the United States was colonized by men holding equal rank,
there is as yet no natural or permanent disagreement between the
interests of its different inhabitants.

There are communities in which the members of the minority
can never hope to draw the majority over to their side, because
they must then give up the very point that is at issue between
them. Thus an aristocracy can never become a majority while it
retains its exclusive privileges, and it cannot cede its
privileges without ceasing to be an aristocracy.

In the United States, political questions cannot be taken up
in so general and absolute a manner; and all parties are willing
to recognize the rights of the majority, because they all hope at
some time to be able to exercise them to their own advantage. The
majority in that country, therefore, exercise a prodigious actual
authority, and a power of opinion which is nearly as great; no
obstacles exist which can impede or even retard its progress, so
as to make it heed the complaints of those whom it crushes upon
its path. This state of things is harmful in itself and dangerous
for the future.

HOW THE OMNIPOTENCE OF THE MAJORITY INCREASES, IN AMERICA, THE
INSTABILITY OF LEGISLATION AND ADMINISTRATION INHERENT IN
DEMOCRACY.

The Americans increase the mutability of law that is
inherent in a democracy by changing the legislature year, and
investing it with almost unbounded authority --The same effect is
produced upon the administration--In America the pressure for
social improvements is vastly greater, but less continuous, than
in Europe.

I HAVE already spoken of the natural defects of democratic insti-
tutions; each one of them increases in the same ratio as the
power of the majority. To begin with the most evident of them
all, the mutability of the laws is an evil inherent in a
democratic government, because it is natural to democracies to
raise new men to power. But this evil is more or less perceptible
in proportion to the authority and the means of action which the
legislature possesses.

In America the authority exercised by the legislatures is
supreme; nothing prevents them from accomplishing their wishes
with celerity and with irresistible power, and they are supplied
with new representatives every year. That is to say, the circum-
stances which contribute most powerfully to democratic instabil-
ity, and which admit of the free application of caprice to the
most important objects, are here in full operation. Hence America
is, at the present day, the country beyond all others where laws
last the shortest time. Almost all the American constitutions
have been amended within thirty years; there is therefore not one
American state which has not modified the principles of its
legislation in that time. As for the laws themselves, a single
glance at the archives of the different states of the Union
suffices to convince one that in America the activity of the
legislator never slackens. Not that the American democracy is
naturally less stable than any other, but it is allowed to
follow, in the formation of the laws, the natural instability of
its desires.2

The omnipotence of the majority and the rapid as well as absolute
manner in which its decisions are executed in the United States
not only render the law unstable, but exercise the same influence
upon the execution of the law and the conduct of the administration.
As the majority is the only power that it is important to court, all its
projects are taken up with the greatest ardor; but no sooner is its
attention distracted than all this ardor ceases; while in the free states
of Europe, where the administration is at once independent and secure, the
projects of the legislature continue to be executed even when its
attention is directed to other objects.

In America certain improvements are prosecuted with much
more zeal and activity than elsewhere; in Europe the same ends
are promoted by much less social effort more continuously applied.

Some years ago several pious individuals undertook to
ameliorate the condition of the prisons. The public were moved by
their statements, and the reform of criminals became a popular
undertaking. New prisons were built; and for the first time the
idea of reforming as well as punishing the delinquent formed a
part of prison discipline.

But this happy change, in which the public had taken so
hearty an interest and which the simultaneous exertions of the
citizens rendered irresistible, could not be completed in a
moment. While the new penitentiaries were being erected and the
will of the majority was hastening the work, the old prisons
still existed and contained a great number of offenders. These
jails became more unwholesome and corrupt in proportion as the
new establishments were reformed and improved, forming a contrast
that may readily be understood. The majority was so eagerly
employed in founding the new prisons that those which already
existed were forgotten; and as the general attention was diverted
to a novel object, the care which had hitherto been bestowed upon
the others ceased. The salutary regulations of discipline were
first relaxed and after. wards broken; so that in the immediate
neighborhood of a prison that bore witness to the mild and
enlightened spirit of our times, dungeons existed that reminded
one of the barbarism of the Middle Ages.

TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY.

How the principle of the sovereignty of
the people is to be understood--Impossibility of conceiving
a mixed government--The sovereign power must exist
somewhere--Precautions to be taken to control its action
--These precautions have not been taken in the United States
--Consequences.

I hold it to be an impious and detestable maxim that, politically
speaking, the people have a right to do anything; and yet I have
asserted that all authority originates in the will of the
majority. Am I, then, in contradiction with myself?

A general law, which bears the name of justice, has been
made and sanctioned, not only by a majority of this or that
people, but by a majority of mankind. The rights of every people
are therefore confined within the limits of what is just. A
nation may be considered as a jury which is empowered to
represent society at large and to apply justice, which is its
law. Ought such a jury, which represents society, to have more
power than the society itself whose laws it executes?

When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the
right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the
sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. Some
have not feared to assert that a people can never outstep the
boundaries of justice and reason in those affairs which are
peculiarly its own; and that consequently full power may be given
to the majority by which it is represented. But this is the
language of a slave.

A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose
opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of
another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted
that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by
wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to
the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting
with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of
obstacles increase with their strength.3 For my own part, I cannot
believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse
to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.

I do not think that, for the sake of preserving liberty, it
is possible to combine several principles in the same government
so as really to oppose them to one another. The form of government that
is usually termed mixed has always appeared to me a mere chimera.
Accurately speaking, there is no such thing as a mixed government
in the sense usually given to that word, because in all
communities some one principle of action may be discovered which
preponderates over the others. England in the last century, which
has been especially cited as an example of this sort of government,
was essentially an aristocratic state, although it comprised some great
elements of democracy; for the laws and customs of the country were
such that the aristocracy could not but preponderate in the long run and
direct public affairs according to its own will. The error arose from
seeing the interests of the nobles perpetually contending with those of
the people, without considering the issue of the contest, which was
really the important point. When a community actually has a mixed
government--that is to say, when it is equally divided between adverse
principles--it must either experience a revolution or fall into
anarchy.

I am therefore of the opinion that social power superior to
all others must always be placed somewhere; but I think that
liberty is endangered when this power finds no obstacle which can
retard its course and give it time to moderate its own vehemence.

Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing.
Human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion.
God alone can be omnipotent, because his wisdom and his justice
are always equal to his power. There is no power on earth so
worthy of honor in itself or clothed with rights so sacred that I
would admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When
I see that the right and the means of absolute command are
conferred on any power whatever, be it called a people or a king,
an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I say
there is the germ of tyranny, and I seek to live elsewhere, under
other laws.

In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic
institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often
asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their
irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive
liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate
securities which one finds there against tyranny.
an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom
can he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public
opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it
represents the majority and implicitly obeys it; if to the
executive power, it is appointed by the majority and serves as a
passive tool in its hands. The public force consists of the
majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the
right of hearing judicial cases; and in certain states even the
judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd
the measure of which you complain, you must submit to it as well
as you can.4

If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so
constituted as to represent the majority without necessarily
being the slave of its passions, an executive so as to retain a
proper share of authority, and a judiciary so as to remain
independent of the other two powers, a government would be formed
which would still be democratic while incurring scarcely any risk
of tyranny.

I do not say that there is a frequent use of tyranny in America
at the present day; but I maintain that there is no sure barrier
against it, and that the causes which mitigate the government
there are to be found in the circumstances and the manners of the
country more than in its laws.

EFFECTS OF THE OMNIPOTENCE OF THE MAJORITY UPON THE ARBITRARY
AUTHORITY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC OFFICERS.

Liberty left by the American laws to public officers within
a certain sphere --Their power.

A DISTINCTION must be drawn between tyranny and arbitrary power.
Tyranny may be exercised by means of the law itself, and in that
case it is not arbitrary; arbitrary power may be exercised for
the public good, in which case it is not tyrannical. Tyranny
usually employs arbitrary means, but if necessary it can do without them.

In the United States the omnipotence of the majority, which
is favorable to the legal despotism of the legislature, likewise
favors the arbitrary authority of the magistrate. The majority
has absolute power both to make the laws and to watch over their
execution; and as it has equal authority over those who are in
power and the community at large, it considers public officers as
its passive agents and readily confides to them the task of
carrying out its de signs. The details of their office and the
privileges that they are to enjoy are rarely defined beforehand.
It treats them as a master does his servants, since they are
always at work in his sight and he can direct or reprimand them
at any instant.

In general, the American functionaries are far more
independent within the sphere that is prescribed to them than the
French civil officers. Sometimes, even, they are allowed by the
popular authority to exceed those bounds; and as they are
protected by the opinion and backed by the power of the majority,
they dare do things that even a European, accustomed as he is to
arbitrary power, is astonished at. By this means habits are
formed in the heart of a free country which may some day prove
fatal to its liberties.

POWER EXERCISED BY THE MAJORITY IN AMERICA UPON OPINION.

In America, when the majority has once irrevocably decided a
question, all discussion ceases--Reason f or this--Moral power
exercised by the majority upon opinion--Democratic republics have
applied despotism to the minds of men.

IT is in the examination of the exercise of thought in the United
States that we clearly perceive how far the power of the majority
surpasses all the powers with which we are acquainted in Europe.
Thought is an invisible and subtle power that mocks all the
efforts of tyranny. At the present time the most absolute
monarchs in Europe cannot prevent certain opinions hostile to
their authority from circulating in secret through their
dominions and even in their courts. It is not so in America; as
long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried
on; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced,
everyone is silent, and the friends as well as the opponents of
the measure unite in assenting to its propriety. The reason for
this is perfectly clear: no monarch is so absolute as to combine
all the powers of society in his own hands and to conquer all
opposition, as a majority is able to do, which has the right both
of making and of executing the laws.

The authority of a king is physical and controls the actions
of men without subduing their will. But the majority possesses a
power that is physical and moral at the same time, which acts
upon the will as much as upon the actions and represses not only
all contest, but all controversy.

I know of no country in which there is so little
independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in
America. In any constitutional state in Europe every sort of
religious and political theory may be freely preached and
disseminated; for there is no country in Europe so subdued by any
single authority as not to protect the man who raises his voice
in the cause of truth from the consequences of his hardihood. If
he is unfortunate enough to live under an absolute government,
the people are often on his side; if he inhabits a free country,
he can, if necessary, find a shelter behind the throne. The
aristocratic part of society supports him in some countries, and
the democracy in others. But in a nation where democratic
institutions exist, organized like those of the United States,
there is but one authority, one element of strength and success,
with nothing beyond it.

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around
the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write
what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them. Not that
he is in danger of an auto-da-f, but he is exposed to continued
obloquy and persecution. His political career is closed forever,
since he has offended the only authority that is able to open it.
Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to
him. Before making public his opinions he thought he had
sympathizers; now it seems to him that he has none any more since
he has revealed himself to everyone; then those who blame him
criticize loudly and those who think as he does keep quiet and
move away without courage. He yields at length, overcome by the
daily effort which he has to make, and subsides into silence, as
if he felt remorse for having spoken the truth.

Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments that
tyranny formerly employed; but the civilization of our age has
perfected despotism itself, though it seemed to have nothing to
learn. Monarchs had, so to speak, materialized oppression; the
democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as
entirely an affair of the mind as the will which it is intended
to coerce. Under the absolute sway of one man the body was
attacked in order to subdue the soul; but the soul escaped the
blows which were directed against it and rose proudly superior.
Such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic
republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved.
The master no longer says: "You shall think as I do or you shall
die"; but he says: "You are free to think differently from me and
to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess; but
you are henceforth a stranger among your people. You may retain
your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will
never be chosen by your fellow citizens if you solicit their
votes; and they will affect to scorn you if you ask for their
esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of
the rights of mankind. Your fellow creatures will shun you like
an impure being; and even those who believe in your innocence
will abandon you, lest they should be shunned in their turn. Go
in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence
worse than death."

Absolute monarchies had dishonored despotism; let us beware
lest democratic republics should reinstate it and render it less
odious and degrading in the eyes of the many by making it still
more onerous to the few.

Works have been published in the proudest nations of the Old
World expressly intended to censure the vices and the follies of
the times: Labruyre inhabited the palace of Louis XIV when he
composed his chapter upon the Great, and Molire criticized the
courtiers in the plays that were acted before the court. But the
ruling power in the United States is not to be made game of. The
smallest reproach irritates its sensibility, and the slightest
joke that has any foundation in truth renders it indignant, from
the forms of its language up to the solid virtues of its
character, everything must be made the subject of encomium. No
writer, whatever be his eminence, can escape paying this tribute
of adulation to his fellow citizens. The majority lives in the
perpetual utterance of self-applause, and there are certain
truths which the Americans can learn only from strangers or from
experience.

If America has not as yet had any great writers, the reason
is given in these facts; there can be no literary genius without
freedom of opinion, and freedom of opinion does not exist in
America. The Inquisition has never been able to prevent a vast
number of anti-religious books from circulating in Spain. The
empire of the majority succeeds much better in the United States,
since it actually removes any wish to publish them. Unbelievers
are to be met with in America, but there is no public organ of
infidelity. Attempts have been made by some governments to
protect morality by prohibiting licentious books. In the United
States no one is punished for this sort of books, but no one is
induced to write them; not because all the citizens are
immaculate in conduct, but because the majority of the community
is decent and orderly.

In this case the use of the power is unquestionably good;
and I am discussing the nature of the power itself. This
irresistible authority is a constant fact, and its judicious
exercise is only an accident.

EFFECTS OF THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY UPON THE NATIONAL
CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS--THE COURTIER SPIRIT IN THE UNITED
STATES.

Effects of the tyranny of the majority more sensibly felt
hitherto on the manners than on the conduct of society--They
check the development of great characters--Democratic republics, organized like
the United States, infuse the courtier spirit into the mass of the people--Proofs
of this spirit in the United States--Why there is more patriotism in the
people than in those who govern in their name.

THE tendencies that I have just mentioned are as yet but slightly
perceptible in political society, but they already exercise an
unfavorable influence upon the national character of the
Americans. I attribute the small number of distinguished men in
political life to the ever increasing despotism of the majority
in the United States.

When the American Revolution broke out, they arose in great
numbers; for public opinion then served, not to tyrannize over,
but to direct the exertions of individuals. Those celebrated men,
sharing the agitation of mind common at that period, had a gran-
deur peculiar to themselves, which was reflected back upon the
nation, but was by no means borrowed from it.

In absolute governments the great nobles who are nearest to
the throne flatter the passions of the sovereign and voluntarily
truckle to his caprices. But the mass of the nation does not
degrade itself by servitude; it often submits from weakness, from
habit, or from ignorance, and sometimes from loyalty. Some
nations have been known to sacrifice their own desires to those
of the sovereign with pleasure and pride, thus exhibiting a sort
of independence of mind in the very act of submission. These
nations are miserable, but they are not degraded. There is a
great difference between doing what one does not approve, and
feigning to approve what one does; the one is the weakness of a
feeble person, the other befits the temper of a lackey.

In free countries, where everyone is more or less called
upon to give his opinion on affairs of state, in democratic
republics, where public life is incessantly mingled with domestic
affairs, where the sovereign authority is accessible on every
side, and where its attention can always be attracted by
vociferation, more persons are to be met with who speculate upon
its weaknesses and live upon ministering to its passions than in
absolute monarchies. Not because men are naturally worse in these
states than elsewhere, but the temptation is stronger and at the
same time of easier access. The result is a more extensive
debasement of character.

Democratic republics extend the practice of currying favor with
the many and introduce it into all classes at once; this is the
most serious reproach that can be addressed to them. This is
especially true in democratic states organized like the American
republics, where the power of the majority is so absolute and
irresistible that one must give up one's rights as a citizen and
almost abjure one's qualities as a man if one intends to stray
from the track which it prescribes.

In that immense crowd which throngs the avenues to power in
the United States, I found very few men who displayed that manly
candor and masculine independence of opinion which frequently
distinguished the Americans in former times, and which
constitutes the leading feature in distinguished characters
wherever they may be found. It seems at first sight as if all the
minds of the Americans were formed upon one model, so accurately
do they follow the same route. A stranger does, indeed, sometimes
meet with Americans who dissent from the rigor of these
formulas, with men who deplore the defects of the laws, the
mutability and the ignorance of democracy, who even go so far as
to observe the evil tendencies that impair the national
character, and to point out such remedies as it might be possible
to apply; but no one is there to hear them except yourself, and
you, to whom these secret reflections are confided, are a
stranger and a bird of passage. They are very ready to
communicate truths which are useless to you, but they hold a
different language in public.

If these lines are ever read in America, I am well assured
of two things: in the first place, that all who peruse them will
raise their voices to condemn me; and, in the second place, that
many of them will acquit me at the bottom of their conscience.

I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and I have
found true patriotism among the people, but never among the
leaders of the people. This may be explained by analogy:
despotism debases the oppressed much more than the oppressor: in
absolute monarchies the king often has great virtues, but the
courtiers are invariably servile. It is true that American
courtiers do not say "Sire," or "Your Majesty," a distinction
without a difference. They are forever talking of the natural
intelligence of the people whom they serve; they do not debate
the question which of the virtues of their master is
pre-eminently worthy of admiration, for they assure him that he
possesses all the virtues without having acquired them, or
without caring to acquire them; they do not give him their
daughters and their wives to be raised at his pleasure to the
rank of his concubines; but by sacrificing their opinions they
prostitute themselves. Moralists and philosophers in America
are not obliged to conceal their opinions under the veil of
allegory; but before they venture upon a harsh truth,
they say: "We are aware that the people whom we are addressing
are too superior to the weaknesses of human nature to lose the
command of their temper for an instant. We should not hold this
language if we were not speaking to men whom their virtues and
their intelligence render more worthy of freedom than all the
rest of the world." The sycophants of Louis XIV could not flatter
more dexterously.

For my part, I am persuaded that in all governments,
whatever their nature may be, servility will cower to force, and
adulation will follow power. The only means of preventing men
from degrading themselves is to invest no one with that unlimited
authority which is the sure method of debasing them.

THE GREATEST DANGERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS PROCEED FROM
THE OMNIPOTENCE OF THE MAJORITY.

Democratic republics liable to perish from a
misuse of their power, and not from impotence--The
governments of the American republics are more centralized and
more energetic than those of the monarchies of Europe--Dangers
resulting from this--Opinions of Madison and Jefferson upon this
point.

GOVERNMENTS usually perish from impotence or from tyranny. In the
former case, their power escapes from them; it is wrested from
their grasp in the latter. Many observers who have witnessed the
anarchy of democratic states have imagined that the government of
those states was naturally weak and impotent. The truth is that
when war is once begun between parties, the government loses its
control over society. But I do not think that a democratic power
is naturally without force or resources; say, rather, that it is
almost always by the abuse of its force and the misemployment of
its resources that it becomes a failure. Anarchy is almost always
produced by its tyranny or its mistakes, but not by its want of
strength.

It is important not to confuse stability with force, or the
greatness of a thing with its duration. In democratic republics
the power that directs 5 society is not stable, for it often changes hands
and assumes a new direction. But whichever way it turns, its
force is almost irresistible. The governments of the American
republics appear to me to be as much centralized as those of the
absolute monarchies of Europe, and more energetic than they are.
I do not, therefore, imagine that they will perish from weakness.6

If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that
event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority, which
may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation and
oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then
be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.

Mr. Madison expresses the same opinion in The Federalist,
No. 51. "It is of great importance in a republic, not only to
guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to
guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other
part. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil
society. It ever has been, and ever will be, pursued until it be
obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society,
under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite
and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as
in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured
against the violence of the stronger: and as, in the latter
state, even the stronger individuals are prompted by the
uncertainty of their condition to submit to a government which
may protect the weak as well as themselves, so, in the former
state, will the more powerful factions be gradually induced by a
like motive to wish for a government which will protect all
parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be
little doubted, that, if the State of Rhode Island was separated
from the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of right
under the popular form of government within such narrow limits
would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of the factious
majorities, that some power altogether independent of the people
would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions whose
misrule had proved the necessity of it.¯

Jefferson also said: "The executive power in our government
is not the only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my
solicitude. The tyranny of the legislature is really the danger
most to be feared, and will continue to be so for many years to
come. The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn,
but at a more distant period." 7

I am glad to cite the opinion of Jefferson upon this subject
rather than that of any other, because I consider him the most
powerful advocate democracy has ever had.

Footnotes

1 We have seen, in examining the Federal Constitution, that the e
fforts of the legislators of
the Union were directed against this absolute power. The consequence
has been that the Federal
government is more independent in its sphere than that of the states.
But the Federal government
scarcely ever interferes in any but foreign affairs; and the governments
of the states in reality
direct society in America.
2 The legislative acts promulgated by the state of
Massachusetts alone from the year 1780 to the present time
already fill three stout volumes; and it must not be forgotten
that the collection to which I allude was revised in 1823, when
many old laws which had fallen into disuse were omitted. The
state of Massachusetts, which is not more populous than a
department of France, may be considered as the most stable, the
most consistent, and the most sagacious in its undertakings of
the whole Union.
3 No one will assert that a people cannot forcibly wrong
another people; but parties may be looked upon as lesser nations
within a great one, and they are aliens to each other. If,
therefore, one admits that a nation can act tyrannically towards
another nation, can it be denied that a party may do the same
towards another party?
4 A striking instance of the excesses that may be occasioned
by the despotism of the majority occurred at Baltimore during the
War of 1812. At that time the war was very popular in Baltimore.
A newspaper that had taken the other side excited, by its
opposition, the indignation of the inhabitants. The mob
assembled, broke the printing-presses, and attacked the house of
the editors. The militia was called out, but did not obey the
call; and the only means of saving the wretches who were
threatened by the frenzy of the mob was to throw them into prison
as common malefactors. But even this precaution was ineffectual,
the mob collected again during the night; the magistrates again
made a vain attempt to call out the militia; the prison was
forced, one of the newspaper editors was killed upon the spot,
and the others were left for dead. The guilty parties, when they
were brought to trial, were acquitted by the jury.
I said one day to an inhabitant of Pennsylvania: "Be so good
as to explain to me how it happens that in a state founded by
Quakers, and celebrated for its toleration, free blacks are not
allowed to exercise civil rights. They pay taxes; is it not fair
that they should vote?"
"You insult us," replied my informant, "if you imagine that
our legislators could have committed so gross an act of injustice
and intolerance."
"Then the blacks possess the right of voting in this
country?"
"Without doubt."
"How comes it, then, that at the polling-booth this morning
I did not perceive a single Negro?"
"That is not the fault of the law. The Negroes have an
undisputed right of voting, but they voluntarily abstain from
making their appearance."
"A very pretty piece of modesty on their part!" rejoined I.
"Why, the truth is that they are not disinclined to vote,
but they are afraid of being maltreated; in this country the law
is sometimes unable to maintain its authority without the support
of the majority. But in this case the majority entertains very
strong prejudices against the blacks, and the magistrates are
unable to protect them in the exercise of their legal rights."
"Then the majority claims the right not only of making the
laws, but of breaking the laws it has made?"
5 This power may be centralized in an assembly, in which
case it will be strong without being stable; or it may be
centralized in an individual, in which case it will be less
strong, but more stable.
6 I presume that it is scarcely necessary to remind the
reader here, as well as throughout this chapter, that I am
speaking, not of the Federal government, but of the governments
of the individual states, which the majority controls at its
pleasure.
7 Letter from Jefferson to Madison. March 15. 1789.
.